We live in the most exciting, the most revolutionary, the most creative, the most challenging, and the most dangerous time the world has ever seen. Scientific genius combined with the arcane implications of mystical revelation has brought us to a crisis of perception, a decisive turning point where old structures must terminate or change.
As I approach my late-eighties I find that my lifelong inability to exclude anything – any teaching, or any part of myself, or to capitulate to any one way of living, has turned out to be the very thing that now makes it possible for me to see that when we integrate the objective approach to life with the subjective approach we become the Third Appearance – the incarnated presence of the divine.
To some I may appear to be a spiritual anarchist out to destroy a number of religion’s most sacrosanct superstitions, those previously thought to be prerequisites for spirituality. To others, what I have to say will be an avenue leading from past limitations into presently unbelievable new freedoms. Precisely because of my many years of trial and error, I have found and have personally demonstrated some of the necessary and very practical solutions that will take us there.
It is not my intention to either perpetuate or debunk traditional religions – Christianity, Buddhism, Hebraism, Islam, metaphysical or existential philosophies – but rather to explore and help initiate a new, non-sectarian “global myth” that will define the future.
The Mayan calendar, whose beginnings date back many thousands of years, ends on December 23, 2012, and similarly some futurists and intuitives have more recently announced that in just a few years the planetary cycle that the world has been undergoing for eons will end and be replaced by a new one. The new one will not be created by divine accident; we are no longer helpless victims of chance. For the first time, humankind is affecting its own evolution. Science, philosophy, and metaphysical mysticism are combining to give us creditable new insights that, when finally integrated into our consciousness, will make it possible for us to create whatever kind of world we desire for ourselves.
Most significantly, if we are to prosper we have to perceive something that has never been seen before. We must literally close the gap between our divinity and our humanity, between the visible and the invisible, between the subjective and the objective, and between consciousness and form. With the help of science it is possible for us to bring our abstract truths out of the clouds and down to earth. That is the only way that we can meet the challenges that we face at the less than absolute level of personal existence.
With lifestyle changes accelerating daily all of us, young and old alike, are forced to constantly reinvent ourselves in order to let go of obsolete values and inappropriate concepts that stand in the way of a necessary all-inclusive global approach. It’s put- up-or-shut-up time. Either we will face this crisis of perception, or we will be swept along like a bunch of lemmings into a sea of confusion and darkness.
As inexcusable as some of the world wide, soul-shaking experiences of the past few years have been, it is no accident that the hole that was punched in the world’s psyche on September 11, 2001, didn’t happen until evolution was ready to move us collectively into a new dimension. Although the psychological, metaphysical, and spiritual principles that will make it possible for us to counter these critical times have been evolving over the years, until now we haven’t been ready and able to take the next step. Most likely we have needed these disturbing times to push us into waking up. Finally there are enough of us who are able to absorb and demonstrate the truths that we have learned and intuited in our individual lives. Together we can form a critical mass, a heightened group consciousness, that will be powerful enough to “save the city.”
It is not my intention to plunge into the forest of theology, or to try to back up my beliefs by hiding behind any particular religious tradition. Some of my examples will, of necessity, come from the symbols upon which our Western culture has been built – our Judeo-Christian background. It makes no difference if we have or have not agreed with the religions of the past, our society has been conditioned by those symbols. On the few occasions when I do refer to them, my purpose is to reinterpret them in a way that frees us from past moral and philosophical judgments.
Because the media constantly rehashes the dire events that are now happening in the world, if I attempt to counter them with the sound of metaphysical clichés, it will smack of hollow escapism or an attempt to offer a kind of temporary, spiritual anti-depressant. The best thing I can do right now is to take Uncle Gilbert’s advice and be as simple, direct, and self-revealing as I can.
The first half of this book, The Third Appearance, is dedicated to theory, with relatively few personal references or instructions that turn hypothesis into practice. The second half is far more personal and practical, as I implement my perceptions with techniques that have transformed my life in remarkable and undeniable ways.
At this point, we, and the world in general, are in a state of free fall. Objectively there isn’t anything permanent for us to hang onto of a material or intellectual nature. We cannot find security in our bank accounts, our physical health, our mental storehouses, our governments, the teachings of the past, or anything else external to ourselves. If we curl up out of fear in free fall, we will spin helplessly out of control. On the other hand, if we do not panic, but instead stretch out our arms and trust that which we have within ourselves to protect us, we will not only glide down with a modicum of control, but we might enjoy the ride as well.
Walter Starcke